Page 86 of Defiled Innocence

A drop of rain hits the window, and I watch as it slides down the pane. Singular. None follow it.

“Lia, did you see the living room closet?” She pokes her head back into the kitchen.

Finding me still at the window, she steps inside. “Hey.”

I turn away and throw on a smile. “Living room closet. No, is it big?”

“You don’t have to do this, you know.” She stops me when I get close to her. “We can go do something else.”

I shake my head. “No. I’m fine.”

“You don’t look fine.” She follows me as I cross the empty space of the living room to the closet.

The agent who let us into the apartment stands in the far corner of the room, giving us free range of the apartment.

“I promise. I am.”

“You still haven’t talked to him, have you?” she questions.

“I don’t need to.” I shut the door. “Not until I’ve decided what to do.”

She stares at me in silence, and I know she wants to push me. I throw on another smile, even if it doesn’t fit the way I feel inside. This isn’t about me today.

“I think you’d like this place,” I say, sweeping my arm out. “It’s got a lot of room, and the in-unit laundry is life changing.”

She hesitates only a moment before turning to the agent. “She’s right. I’ll take it!”

“Perfect. If you’ll follow me down to the office, I’ll get the lease agreement all filled out and we’ll get the credit check started.” She leads us from the one-bedroom apartment to the office on the ground floor.

“Is he still out there?” Sarah asks when we’re seated back in the waiting area.

I casually walk over to the large picture window looking out at the busy street.

“At least he’s sitting in the car this time.”

Boris has become my shadow, especially whenever I meet Sarah. The last two apartments we’ve looked at, he’s stood outside on the street with a disapproving glare settled on the building.

“Maybe he likes this one then?” she asks with a little more hope in her words than I would expect, considering how much of a hard time she’s given him after he took her home from the bar.

“It’s in a good part of town and there’s a lot of security checks to get in and out of here. I’m sure he’d approve if you’d ask his opinion.” I nudge her as I take the seat beside her.

“I’m not asking him.” She pulls her phone out of her purse and starts doom scrolling. “Thanks for coming with me, Lia. I know you’ve been having a bad time lately.”

“I welcome the distraction,” I assure her, even though nothing seems to work to get the horrible memory of those pictures of my mother out of my mind.

How could my father have done something so horrible and then acted like the deeply wounded widower?

“If you do decide to move out, you can get an apartment here. It’s just a few subway stops to get to the center,” she points out. “Which reminds me, I scheduled the plumbing inspector to come tomorrow like you wanted, and I moved your meeting with the new Freedom House manager to next week.”

“That’s fine.” My phone dings inside my purse.

“There’s also supposed to be a board meeting for the foundation, since the April meeting didn’t happen.” She hesitates a moment while I dig through my purse. “Is Christian still on the board?”

I close my eyes a moment. “No. I don’t think he’ll be on it anymore. One more thing to sort out.” I grimace as I swipe my phone to life and see two messages from Dmitri.

There was a time only weeks ago, the last message in the list would be a veiled threat for ignoring him. Now there’s only a question.

Do you want to meet for a late dinner?

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